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Oceana (language)
The dialect of Oceana (Narasha 'Oshenna) is a mixture of English, Polish and Slovak. It's spoken in the town of Hurbanova and a few migrants in Noble City. There is also a small community in Muza that speaks Muzan Oceana[citation needed]. Speakers Once the Oceana dialect was a very lively language. Especially at the beginning of the twentieth century and during the Hurbanova uproar of 2008. Around 1900 the number of speakers was estimated to be around 300, which was more than 75% of the inhabitants of Oceana. In 1956 this number had already declined to 250, some 50% of all Oceana people. The census of 1998 confirmed 70 speakers. During the Hurbanova uproar of 2008 there were at least 400 speakers, but when Hurbanova again chose for the Lovian side the number of dayly speakers drastically declined. Currently there are no good figures available but rough estimates vary from 70 to 125 speakers. Preservation As the number of speakers steadily declines more and more people are trying to preserve as much of the language as possible. In 2008 Oos Wes Ilava published an academic word list including 500 words. He's currently working on a dictionary. He says the number of speakers will probably no longer increase because Oceana nowadays is more Noble City-orientated, though it wouldn't harm anyone if the language would be well-documentated. Even though the language is probably going extinct within the next fifty years, there are bilangual road signs, for example at the Vlackstreet, where the road sign also includes the Oceana name "Vlacest". This is has been done mainly for the tourists, but even inhabitants of Oceana that don't speak the dialect still use Oceana propre names for streets, human names, neighborhoods and of course the village anthem of Hurbanova: Kem that lew is espavat. The "Quaire o'Hurbanoft" (Choir of Hurbanova) only sings songs in Oceana and became popular throughout entire Lovia with it. In 1907, when the started, all members still spoke the dialect, but now hardly anyone does. It is taught at all schools in Oceana, mostly it's about Oceana literature then. There is no official regulation, but the Narasha 'Oshenna Rát is often regarded to as being the official regulation. Maybe in the near future it will become official. Pronunciation Grammar Adjectives and adverbs Adjectives are placed before nouns and do not agree with quantity, just like English adjectives. Adverbs are usually formed by adding the suffix -(a)ne. Examples: *"the big, old car": "that beag, ow bieca". *"heavy - heavily": "tashki - tashkine". (ending on a vowel: -ne) *"current - currently": "denshen - denshenne". (ending on -en: -ne) *"deep - deeply": "deep - deepane/deepne". (ending on a consonant: -(a)ne) In the past, adjectives did agree with gender and quantity. Some examples: *masculine singular: "un prachy slapemortel". (a beautiful discussion) *masculine plural: "prachi slapemortels". (beautiful discussions) *neutrum singular: "u prach daylek". (a beautiful dialect) *neutrum plural: "prache dayleks". (beautiful dialects) Articles There are three articles in Oceana. The following examples will make clear how they're used: *singular indicative: "the car", in Oceana: "that bieca". *plural indicative: "the cars", in Oceana: "thie biecas". *singular not indicative: "a car", in Oceana: "un bieca". *plural not indicative: "some cars", in Oceana: "(nikolk) biecas". From older writings we know that Oceana used to have two different genders: masculine and neutrum. This resulted into different articles: *masculine: "thy sham" - "thie shams" - "un sham" - "(nikolk) shams" (castle). *neutrum: "that quaire" - "thie quaires" - "u quaire" - "(nikult) quaires" (choir). As one can see, the indicative forms that remained were neutrum and the not indicative forms that remained were masculine. Nouns There are two types of nouns: regular ones and irregular ones. They usually have singular and plural, but no longer hold a specific gender. There are three cases: nominative, genitive and locative. Regular plural is constructed using -s, like sweerk (animal) - sweerks (animals). Sometimes it's -ses, like pes (dog) - pesses (dogs) and sometimes it's -es, like hous (house) - houses (houses). The genitive is constructed by adding ' or o' before a word or by adding the suffix -a(s). The locative is constructed using the suffix -owey(s). Example: "The dog of the man goes towards the houses." - "That pes that mana got thie shealoweys." Nowadays the locative is getting out of use, one is more likely to find: "That pes o'(that )man got de thie sheals." Some examples of nouns with an irregular plural: *answer: esse - ash (merging English and Slovak) *child: tshide - tsheeden (umlaut and -n) *gate: brana - branan (adding -n) *man: man - lide (merging two roots) *nose: nos - nus (umlaut). *ship: loce - lodsh (rudimentary Slovak inflection). *tree: strom - strum(s) (umlaut and -s). *worm: tsher - cherref (adding -f). Verbs Verbs usually only have three forms: present, perfect and past particle. An example of a regular verb is "statch" (to happen): it statch - it statcheth - iaf estatchen. There are two types of strong verbs: those from English and those from Slovak. Two examples from English: "come": it come - it cay - iaf cum; "give": it give - it gave - iaf given. An Example from Slovak: "chest" (to eat): it chest - it chist - iaf chesten. Then there are the irregular verbs. These verbs have the personal pronoun include as a prefix. Some verbs of this class are shown below. When hooks are used, there are also forms possible without a prefix. Pronouns References category:Oceana Category:Language